Let it be

Blame it on Kramer and his serenity now soliloquy but I always thought mantras were a bit silly. Until I got pregnant. Some enjoy every minute of their pregnancies. Not me. For me, pregnancy was a means to an end, and the means felt interminable. So I adopted a mantra: One day at a time. Forget tomorrow, the next week or the week after, get through the day. And day by day, nine months passed and I met my heart's desire.

Now that baby is here I don't need that mantra. One day at a time? What days? They fly by with the blink of an eye while I just try to fasten my seatbelt and try my best to hang on. They say the days are long but the years are short. The years may be short, but I'd argue that the days? They're pretty short too.

Now reality check: Mommyhood is great but mommyhood is hard. Sleepless nights render me a tiny bit tired most of the time. And sleeplessness? It makes working on manuscripts, cleaning dishes, folding laundry, instantly onerous tasks that this sleepy girl is too tired to take on. And this frustrates me since I'm not the sort of person who sits on the couch all day holding a baby watching Judge Judy marathons. (Now, granted I do watch Judge Judy. I do sit on the couch. I do hold the baby so much he probably thinks he's a baby Kangaroo. Just not all day). The other day I was reading Momma Zen and her words on tiredness:

When you're tired, be tired. In other words, don't exaggerate contemplate, bemoan, or otherwise involve yourself with it. Don't reject it don't despise it. Don't inflate it with meaning or difficulty. Be what you are: be tired. . . Be so tired that you will stop measuring the length of your hardship and stop looking for an end.

And that's been the issue. I've been judging the way I feel. Harshly. Like its not okay to be tired. Like I need to just snap out of it. And the truth is, its okay to be tired. It's not a judgment, its a state of reality. Instead of looking for the end, I need to just let it be.

The naps instead of sleep? Let it be
The manuscript progressing at snail's pace? Let it be
The dishes piling? The laundry not folding? Let it be. 

Let it be.
Let it be.
Let it be.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

(The Beatles)

Faith and the turning of the tide

As I got ready to put an old purse into its dust bag, I ran my hand through it to make sure it was empty and found a small business card with some simple words in my hasty cursive script: The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. Reading it transported me back to when these words were written. A dear friend was visiting and together we wandered the streets of Virginia Highlands as she listened to me as I told her of the difficulties I had recently endured. I remember how I felt that day. Bruised and broken. Lost and spinning into an abyss. Walking into a shop, she pointed out to me a quote on a necklace dangling in the store, the lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. I wasn't certain if this was true, but the quote gave me goosebumps. I tried believing in it. Just as I tried holding on to the knowledge that He is closer to me than my jugular. That even when I feel like I am alone, I am not. But it certainly didn't feel that way. Things had seemed so tough for so long I wasn't sure it would ever get better. I was at the lowest ebb, and yet I saw no sign of a tide turning. Still I clung tight like a stranded passenger clinging to a rope in the middle of the dark forbidding ocean, I struggled mightily to hold on. Around that time I wrote in my journal:

I am sitting at a writing table in a cabin atop a mountain in Asheville, NC. It is late at night and I am looking out the large window. This morning, during the day, I looked out and saw beautiful green mountains framing the window in every direction. I saw the firm etching they made into the horizon. The Smoky Mountains as concrete and real as the fingers that type these words. Tonight at two o’clock in the morning I stare out in the darkness and see nothing. No silhouette. No etching of mountain side. In this darkness, if I cannot see the mountains do the mountains still exist? As I consider this darkness while I struggle with a different darkness like a blanket over my soul I cannot tell you the truth with 100% conviction.

Because that's when its hardest. When things are good its easy to believe. To believe is to know. And you know because you can touch the blessings that abound. Faith, on the other hand, its believing when  when you feel you have no reason to believe. It's believing even if you're not sure you know anything anymore.

Henry Longfellow was right, the tide did turn. But the thing about tides is, they ebb and flow. I hope next time I see myself in a desert-like state, I will remember to have faith in the turning of tides.

The lowest ebb is the turning of the tide- Longfellow

Sleeping through the night

I write about sleeping through the night. A lot. Namely the whole not sleeping through the night. I had a few good stretches to be sure, even two days of seven hour stretches which were delicious and savory like a flaky croissant with a creamy chocolate center straight from a Parisian bakery. But the thing with baked goods is, particularly of the Parisian variety, they create cravings for more. And I wanted more. I wasn't happy with the measly five hour stretches he gave me though technically my doctor told me this was considered sleeping through the night. Well, I would give anything for those five hour stretches now that little guy wakes every two to three hours all night long like clockwork. And its not the grumpy rumbles of discontent of nights past, now its angry shrieks of OMG GET UP AND FEED ME RIGHT NOW!! GAH!

So what does Aisha do in the face of a perplexing dilemma? She looks up every book ever written on the subject of sleep and requests it for hold at the library so she can devour them all. [I do this with everything. The librarians know more about me and my challenges, hopes and dreams based simply on my book renewals than perhaps anyone else. Which makes it sometimes awkward for me when I chat with them since they know my first and last name without my even having to tell them who I am]. I had hoped the books would enlighten me but instead, they confound me. One book suggested I let him cry it out when he wails in the middle of the night, another suggested I comfort him as soon as he releases a whimper. All books hailed their views as the absolute view with dire consequences such as psychiatric issues and insecure adulthoods if I failed to adhere to their line of thought.

Reading through the books did help me reach one conclusion: I'm done reading books of the parenting variety. While they do provide useful information at the end of the day, I am his mother and I do have instincts that tell me what I should do. As a first time parent I tend to bury my instincts and try turning to 'experts' because everything feels bewildering and I can't possibly know what I'm doing, except that I'm coming to realize that I am an expert when it comes to my child. Not an infallible experts since much of what I learn is by trial and error, but I'm getting a PhD in Waleed day by day, something no one else can claim to have.

So I've decided instead of changing him, I'm going to change myself because I cannot and will not let him cry it out. At least not yet.  When he cries the cause is real and serious from his POV. I know when I cry over things real and serious, the thing I want most in this world is someone to comfort me. If he cries he needs to believe I will be there for him. I know fabulous parents who do the cry it out method and say it works, and that's great, but its not something I can do at least right now.

So I'm changing my perspective. Nursing babies tend to sleep for shorter durations before they get hungry again. Everytime he wakes up, though it exhausts me, it also tells me that he's alive and well, something I never take for granted. And these night wakings, as permanent as they may seem in my life right now, they will pass. I will get my sleep back one day, but he will never be this little again. Each day I hold him is the smallest most babiest I'll ever see him ever again. So instead of focusing on my darkened eyes, I will focus on these blessings and take each day one day at a time.

Three Beautiful Things Thursday

Thunder. When you're at home. Holding your baby. Watching thick fat raindrops splatter the pavement quenching the thirst of the grass which were yellowing bit by bit with each passing day.

Inspiration. It done gone and struck me after who knows how long and the revising of my manuscript is now in frenetic full gear. And its oh so much funner on a brand new sparkly white laptop.

Sleep. As beautiful a thing as God ever created.  Sleep: I miss you. I hope one day we will meet again.

Waleed, the angelic Asian

K: I love Waleed so much.
A: I know, he's great.
K: He's my little asian.
A: Your little what?
K: angel, what do you think I said?
A: Asian
K: I said angel. . . I think . . . maybe the fasting got to my head.
A: Maybe you did say angel and the sleep deprivation got to my head.
K: I guess both statements are true though. He's an angel. And he is Asian.
A: He's our angelic little Asian.

The flood- words fail

I've been avoiding the news lately. Its wrong, I know, but I did not want to wrap my mind around what happened, what is happening, what will continue to happen for years to come in my ancestral country of Pakistan. The floods. That have killed, displaced, injured, and devastated millions. I avoid it because what can I do? Donate? Sure, and I will. But this money isn't reaching the victims. At least not yet. And besides that, what can I do? So I've avoided it. I read the headings on my yahoo news and I continue on my day. Until today when K was watching the nightly news and instead of leaving the area I watched. I watched people boating over what was once their homes. I watched as they showed a two month old baby girl who drank dirty water and will soon die. She was beautiful. Long lashes and chubby cheeks. Her mother and I were both pregnant at the same time. We both had dreams for our babies. We both went through labor. We both held our children and felt a fierce love unparalleled. Yet her daughter will die. What separates me from her, my son from her daughter, save the luck of circumstance. And now I can't stop crying. Now the tears downpour torrential with sadness for her and frustration that I cannot do anything. I sit in my air conditioned house watching on my flat screen television the devastation of which I can do nothing to prevent. I hold the warm soft body of my baby and how many will be burying theirs tonight? I can cry, but what good are these tears?

And this is why I avoid these stories, because they hurt and there is nothing I can do to fix it. And yet- today I realized I must watch and I must read. I must feel the pain. Practically, it will do nothing to improve their situation but at least their pain mattered. If you are considering giving your zakat during this holy month of Ramadan to the flood victims, Edhi Foundation, Islamic Relief, and Human Development Fund are organizations that have in the past effectively worked on providing direct aid to the affected. Another suggestion some imams have also given is, in lieu of hosting an iftaar for your friends and family this year, take the money you would have spent and send it to the flood victims. **Ash also pointed out that you can text to certain organizations who will in turn provide $5-10 towards flood victims for each text, a link of these organizations is here.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, donations to these victims are staggeringly less than any other disaster in recent history. I'd like to hope prejudice is not the reason but it makes it even more important for those of us who care, to give and do what we can.

The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that the flood disaster had eclipsed the scale of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti combined.  About 14 million people have now been affected by the flooding, and about 1,600 people killed. Both figures are expected to rise in the coming days. Pakistan's federal flood commission estimated that 300,000 homes have been destroyed or seriously damaged so far and 2.6m acres (105,000 sq km) of croplands submerged. Six million [of the 14 million affected] are children and 3 million women of child-bearing age. This is a higher figure than in the 2005 south Asia tsunami," the UN's humanitarian affairs co-ordination office said. [source: HDF]

Ramadan Mubarak

Two days ago I saw a TV show where people were televised congratulating a bigoted baker on his denial of services to a woman in hijab. For weeks I've been following the news stories of a church in the city I went to college planning to burn Qurans and about the ground zero mosque protests and the fact that the hatred against building mosques goes well beyond NYC.

I take comfort in public figures like Jon Stewart who tackle the stupidity behind the hatred but as immune as I like to think I am to this stuff, its really bothering me these days. How others treat Muslims. How Muslims treat others. How Muslims treat Muslims. 

And yet- this month is not about that. It's Ramadan. A time for introspection, to quietly evaluate ones own faith and strengthen ones spirituality. To not look outside so much as to look inside. Ultimately as much as religion is about each other, it is also about ones own self. And though I can hope to change others, I can only truly work towards changing myself. I hope this month will bring me closer to my faith and will help me feel closer to my Creator towards whom I can never offer thanks enough. 

Ramadan Mubarak to you and yours, may it be everything you want it to be.

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Happy Three Month Birthday

Dear Waleed,

Yesterday you turned three months old. You roll over, you grin, you babble. You kick your legs and shriek with delight. Every day there is something new to you.

This was your first trip to Nana and Nani's house. Needless to say you were the center of attention as constant streams of visitors both family and friends came to see you. Every evening we spent sitting by you, chatting with you, watching you watch the helium balloon or stare at your hands or toss us one of those smiles, you know, the ones that crack the earth in half and let out unicorns and rainbows? All the books say you're too young to be spoiled, but if you were capable of it, after this trip you'd have been spoiled rotten I'm sure.

This month was also the end of the constant stream of visitors who loved your parents and came to help us out so we could have an easier time getting adjusted to parenthood. I was a little nervous the first day I found myself home alone with you. I wondered, are you all really going to leave me in charge of a completely helpless human being? But everyday I learn more about you. I can tell when you are tired before you even rub your eyes, or when you're hungry before you begin crying. I wear you in a sling as we clean the house together, you nap in your bouncer while I catch up on my manuscript. We're developing a rhythm, slowly we're getting in sync.

But the best part of this month? That happened yesterday on your third month birthday. I tickled your chin and what did you do? You gave out a full blown grown up laugh. You laughed and laughed. I could try to tell you how that made me feel but that word does not yet exist in the English language.

You love it when I sing. When I sing you look at me with an open mouthed wide-eyed stare as though you're in the presence of Pavarotti. In fact, every time you see me, particularly after a few moments apart, you get so excited as though I'm some sort of famous rock star you never thought you'd have the chance to meet. I'm overwhelmed by your love. Your pure guileless love.

And speaking of love, while I won't say I love you more than anyone else, the way I love you is different than any other love.  Nana shared with me this quote by Warren Buffett that captures the feeling well:

[T]here is no power on earth like unconditional love. And if you offered that to your child,  you’re 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don’t feel like it — it’s not uncritical love; that’s a different animal — but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it’s going to make for a better human being."

I love you not because of the way you smile. The way you babble, or the way you make the cutest pouty lips in the world. I love you because you are you. Because you exist. Because you are mine. Right now your world is simple but one day it will get complicated and you will question so many things. But in one area you should never have any doubt, and that is that I will always love you like I love you today. and this love? Its bigger than Jupiter and more real than the atoms that make me who I am. I will always be your home.

Love,

Your Mama

Three Beautiful Things Thursday

my mac. My old PC was beginning to look shaky and since I've had so many die under my watch, I know the signs all too well. K, wanting to get me a "thanks for giving birth to my baby" gift suggested the iPad which while cool, is not something I saw myself taking full advantage of since I tend to get my books from libraries and call me old-fashioned but I need to feel the pages between my fingers when I read. Instead, we decided on the macbook. When I first got it, I felt disappointed. While it looked super sleek I missed having a PC which I understood completely. But, I'm happy to say despite reduced brain cells due to sleep deprivation, I have managed to figure out how to use the mac, and now I actually kind of sort of love it. Really glad I have it. Really hope I don't kill it. 


Eyebuydirect.com. It used to be a running joke in my family about how many glasses I could go through in a year. (I'm noticing a theme of me breaking things, hmm). I had a good streak, keeping a pair of glasses for over four years without incident but then my prescription changed and I was lucky enough to find this website that has cheap glasses and pretty good service. They are not paying me to say it [though offers of free glasses will never be refused] but its been such a relief for a klutz like me to have a place I can readily order new glasses. I just broke my glasses yesterday and am so glad that its only going to set me back $20 as opposed to the $100s it once did. 


mango-banana milkshake.  I miss the days of taking evening walks once the heat had somewhat dissipated but these days its still 90 degrees at 9 o'clock at night -but-one mango + two bananas + milk + ice = the most unbeatable taste sensation as one tries to make it through this ridiculously hot summer.

Thoughts on Target and 'Everybody Else'

When I was younger, living under my parent's roof, I was often told no when I asked to go out with friends to football games or parties. It's not you we don't trust, they said, its everybody else. This would irk me to no end until now. Like today. Today, I get it.

I went to Target today. That's great, you might say. Thanks for giving us the play-by-play of your most scintillating life. But there's more. You see, I went to Target. With the baby. by myself. It was my first time going solo and I was a bit apprehensive. I've done enough of the judgmental eyeroll at other people's children shrieking up and down the aisles to be slightly nervous about the karma coming around to bite me. Luckily, little guy was more perplexed than upset by the whole store situation and let out nary a peep. [I guess I have a year or two before the shrieking through the aisles stage of life begins]

It was not the shopping that disturbed me. It was the driving to and from Target. You see I think people particularly in my town are a bit crazy on the road. I say think because I never really noticed crazy drivers in my neck of the woods until today. Highways yes. But my particular area, filled with bored police officers at every turn, the crazy tends to stay under wraps. Not today. Today it felt like every car was on the verge of careening out of control and drivers were cutting me off left and right. [The latter might be true since at one point I glanced down and saw I was accidentally driving 15 miles under the limit]. I wanted to roll down my window and shout There's a baby in here! Don't drive like a maniac! [And no I didn't do this as I realize this would make me the maniac]

I used to eyeroll those drivers with the shiny yellow Baby on Board signs because I pictured smug soccer moms with bobbed haircuts toting their over scheduled child around in those cars. But today? Today I wanted one for myself. While I may not actually get one of these signs, it did feel amazing to me how different things look now. I know that I will think twice before heading out onto the highway, alone, with the baby, because while I'm sure he'll be fine and promptly fall asleep as soon as I put the pedal to the metal, its not him I don't trust, its everybody else! 

Sunsets

We took you outside for a brief stroll this evening. The sky was a brilliant blue tinged with pink. Its the color of sunset. I've seen it a thousand times. But this was your first. You looked up, your eyes widened, your jaw dropped. We called your name but you did not respond, you were mesmerized. I looked up with you and wondered: How many sunsets did it take for me to simply glance up and look away and not stand immobilized by the sight of such beauty as you were immobilized today? As I watch you watch a tree, or a bird, or a rose for the first time, in some ways I too am seeing things for the first time.